“Medicare for All” would increase federal spending by roughly $3 trillion annually, according to some estimates.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson says he supports the idea, which would replace most private health insurance with federally funded “single-payer” coverage, in which the government pays most medical bills.
The Congressional Budget Office subsequently projected $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion in additional annual federal health care subsidies by 2030, depending on the program’s design.
But higher federal spending doesn’t necessarily mean higher overall costs: A recent Yale University analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, estimated that Medicare for All could reduce total annual U.S. health spending by more than $1 trillion and save an estimated 114,000 lives a year.
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